Massage apparatus and method for lumbar support

ABSTRACT

An ergonomic support mountable on various seat frames has a static portion ( 52 ) with anchors and mounts. The mounts adapt to fix said static portion to varying seat frames. An active portion ( 54 ) is operatively engaged with the anchors of the static portion such that the active portion can move in and out of a plane defined by the frame of the seat. The active portion has a pressure surface with a smooth base level ( 64 ). There are convexities ( 62 ) in the base level that impart a massage effect on a seat occupant. At least one actuator engages the active portion but only by an actuating linkage.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

None.

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT

Not Applicable.

APPENDIX

Not Applicable.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention is in the field of ergonomic supports for seats,especially automobile seats.

2. Prior Art

Ergonomic supports for seats, especially automobile seats that impart amassage type effect on the seat occupant, are known in the art. See,e.g., U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/536,425, incorporated byreference herein. Typically such prior art massage systems involve anactive portion which moves toward and away from a portion of the seatoccupant's anatomy to be supported, for example the lumbar spine. Theactive portion includes a surface that can be put into a variety ofselectable positions supporting the spine to a greater or lesser degree.The moving or active portion of the lumbar support is typically a bowingor arching surface movable from a substantially flat position to asubstantially bowed position which provides lumbar support.

The prior art devices also require a static portion. For example guiderails—which do not move—provide an anchor along which the active portioncan slide or otherwise move through its range of selectable positions.

Alternative designs include push paddle type supports that extend orretract at the end of a linkage or through a channel. See, e.g., U.S.patent application Ser. No. 09/798,657, incorporated by referenceherein. Still other options include strap devices that can be tightenedor loosened in their relationship with a fixed component in order tomove a supporting surface closer or further away from the spine of theseat occupant. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,769,490, incorporated byreference herein. Generically, all of these systems have a moving oractive portion and a static portion having some type of anchor on whichthe active portion is mounted and against which it can move to supportthe load of the seat occupant's weight.

Ergonomic supports for seats have actuating linkages. Frequently theselinkages are traction cables such as Bowden cables. Bowden cables arecomprised of a conduit containing a wire that slides axially through theconduit (also “sleeve”, or “sheath”) to apply or release traction on theactive portion of the lumbar support. The traction moves the activeportion into its supporting position and the release of the tractionmoves the active portion out of its supporting position. For example, inthe arching type of ergonomic support the Bowden cable sleeve is mountedto one end of the arching pressure surface of the active portion and theBowden cable wire is mounted to another end of the active pressuresurface. Thereby, traction on the wire draws the two ends of the archingsurface towards one another, inducing the arch that supports the seatoccupant. Release of the tension allows the arching pressure surface toreturn to its flat position. Alternative actuating linkages may includerods, wires, rack and pinion devices, compression arrangements,eccentric wheels and the like. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,498,063,incorporated by reference herein.

Some prior art lumbar supports cycled automatically through a range ofmotion. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,007,151, incorporated by referenceherein.

In the class of lumbar supports known in the art as massage systems, thepressure surface or active portion is modified by having rollers. Therollers are intended to impart a massage type feel to the seat occupant.Accordingly, the active portions are required to support an array ofaxles or pins on which to mount rollers, along with supporting the arrayof rollers themselves. The roller arrays in the prior art can be heavy,expensive and cumbersome. Moreover, the additional comfort imparted tothe seat occupant by the presence of rollers is often only marginallybetter than the comfort afforded by the movement of the active portionof the lumbar support in the first place. In some configurations in someseats, empirical evidence indicates that rolling can be eliminatedwithout sacrificing passenger comfort.

The presence of heavy and cumbersome active portions having rollerarrays has, in the prior art, required rigid mounting of actuators.Actuators can be manual, but more typically are electrical motors formassaging systems. The actuators generally have an electrical motoroperatively engaged with a gear assembly in a housing. The gear assemblytypically has a seat or mount for one linkage portion, for example thewire of the Bowden cable, and the housing will have a seat or a mountfor another portion of the linkage, for example the Bowden cableconduit. Because a heavy gauge of active portion components is necessaryto support an array of rollers, larger motors and actuators are requiredto move the active portion on prior art massage systems. Moreover, theactuators and motors must be rigidly mounted to the static portion oranchor portion of the ergonomic support. Rigid mounting requiresbrackets which add further weight and expense.

Seat assemblers consider the “package size” of the entire device to bethe widest, tallest and thickest dimensions of the ergonomic supportunit as a whole. There is a continuing need in the furniture andautomobile seat industry for reducing the total package size and weight,as well as the expense of ergonomic supports. Proliferating comfortsystems in seats, such as heating and cooling ducts, require thattraditional ergonomic devices such as lumbar supports should be madesmaller and lighter. The prior art massage systems were large, heavy andexpensive for two primary reasons. Large heavy active portions wererequired to support an array of rollers, and heavy mounting bracketswere used to hold motors and actuators to the static portion of theunit. There is a need in the industry to reduce the weight, size andexpense of the roller array on the active portion of a massaging lumbarsupport, and to reduce the width, thickness and weight of the unit as awhole, particularly by disengaging the actuators from being mounteddirectly to the static portion of the lumbar support.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is a massaging ergonomic support, such as lumbarsupport, that is smaller, thinner, lighter and more economical thanprior art massaging lumbar supports. The present invention imparts thetactile effect of massaging, but without rollers. It does so by using anactive portion or pressure surface that has integral undulations,corrugations or bumps on it, rather than being smooth. These surfacevariations may be imparted to the pressure surface of the active portionthrough molding in plastic or stamping in metal.

The massage lumbar support of the present invention further reducessize, weight and expense by eliminating the need for actuators to bedirectly mounted to the static portion of the ergonomic support. In thepresent invention, actuator gearboxes and motors are connected to thestatic and/or active portions of the lumbar support only by theactuating linkage, such as a Bowden cable. The weight and size of themounting brackets is thereby saved. Instead, the actuators are capableof being mounted directly on any seat-frame. Accordingly, the addedadvantage of being readily customizable for mounting in any seat-frameis gained. Moreover, the size and power of the actuators and motorsrequired to move the present pressure surface with molded surfacevariations is not as great as that required for prior art massaginglumbar supports.

Further features and advantages of the present invention, as well as thestructure and operation of various embodiments of the present invention,are described in detail below with reference to the accompanyingdrawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and form a part ofthe specification, illustrate the embodiments of the present inventionand together with the description, serve to explain the principles ofthe invention. In the drawings:

FIG. 1; is a front view of prior art massaging lumbar support;

FIG. 2; is a front, perspective view of the arching pressure surface ofthe prior art device, with a roller array;

FIG. 3; is a front view of the present massage system;

FIG. 4; is a perspective view of the massage system;

FIG. 5; is a side view of the massage system; and

FIG. 6; is a cross section of the pressure surface of the presentmassage system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Referring to the accompanying drawings in which like reference numbersindicate like elements, FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art massaging lumbarsupport. The prior art support has a static portion 10. In the depictedembodiment this is a pair of guide rails. An active portion 12 is anarching pressure surface. The arching pressure surface of the prior artsupports an array of rollers 14. Actuators 16 move the active portion 12up and down and in and out. One or both of the prior art actuators 16were held onto the static portion 10 by brackets 18.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of an arching pressure surface for a priorart massaging lumbar support. As can be seen, the arching pressuresurface 12 supported an array of rollers 14. Each of the rollers 14 hadto be supported by an axle or pin 20. The axles and pins had to befixated to the arching pressure surface 12 by rivets, welds or the like22. This structure is heavy, complex, expensive and cumbersome. Thissize, weight and expense makes the prior art devices unfeasible forautomobile seats outside the class of large, luxury automobiles.

Referring now to FIGS. 3, 4 and 5 which are front, perspective and sideviews, respectively, of the massage system apparatus of the presentinvention, the massage system is capable of being mounted on preexistingstatic portions 52 without requiring any expensive modification to thestatic portions. The same principle would be true of preexisting staticportions for push paddle or tensioning strap type lumbar supports. Thestatic portion 52—which are guide rails in the depicted embodiment—willmount to any seat frame (not shown) according to mounting techniquesknown in the prior art.

The active portion 54 has a textured, non-smooth surface with waves,corrugations undulations or bumps for imparting the desired tactileeffect to a seat occupant. The active portion 54 has a pressure surfacewith a base level, that is “smooth.” That is, the base level of thepressure surface is like the pressure surface in non-massaging examplesof the prior art; when in a base position it is substantially flat andwhen it is in an arched position it is curvilinear along a continuous,un-varied or “smooth” path. The waves, corregations or other embodimentsof the present invention rise or sink from the base level and vary itsprofile. The variations from the base level of a smooth profile maycollectively be referred to as “convexities.” It is these convexitiesthat impart a massaging effect on a seat occupant as the pressuresurface of the active portion of the lumbar support moves in and out orup and down.

Push paddle supports will have a pressure surface base level that doesnot change profile, but is extended or retracted for support. Tensioningstraps have a pressure surface that does change profile in use, sometimes from concave to flat or from flat to convex. In either case amassage effect may be achieved, in advance over the prior art, by addingthe convexities of the present invention to the base levels of thosepressure surfaces.

Other aspects of the active portion 54, i.e., its interaction with thestatic portion 52 and actuators 56A and 56B, also remain according tothe prior art. That is, in the depicted arching pressure surfaceembodiment of the present invention, the arching pressure surface 54will have sliding mounts engaging the static guide rails 52. Moreover,Bowden cable attachments to the arching pressure surface 54 will applyand release traction according to the methods known in the prior artthrough Bowden cables 60. Likewise, in other embodiments not depicted,the interaction of an active portion, for example a push paddle ortensioning strap, with a static portion, for example a push paddlelinkage or a strap anchor and tightener, are unchanged, and remain asdictated by the prior art. The present invention may be applied toaugment pneumatic systems as well. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,637,076,incorporated by reference herein.

The pressure surface facing and acting upon a seat occupant has novelsurface characteristics according to the apparatus and method of thepresent invention. The arching pressure surface 54 is non-smooth on itsface interacting with the upholstery or cushion that overlies it andthrough which the pressure surface imparts a tactile effect on the seatoccupant. It is within the scope of the present invention that thearching pressure surface have any conceivable surface characteristic,including without limitation, waves, undulations, bumps, corrugations,semi-cylindrical projections, convexities and the like. In the depictedembodiment, simple semi-hemispherical “bumps” are on the archingpressure surface. Such surface characteristics will move in relation toa seat occupant when the active portion of the ergonomic support isactivated, in a manner that will have the same effect as the prior artrollers on massage systems. That is, there will be some necessarymovement of the “bumps” orthogonal to the in and out motion of thearching pressure surface, concomitant with adjustment of. the archingpressure surface. Also, more directly, the bumps will move in asubstantially vertical direction with the arching pressure surface, asthe actuators 56A or 56B move the entire arching pressure surface 54 upand down on the static portion 52. The movement of the surfaceconvexities will impart a massaging-type comfort to the seat occupant.This will be true both as the pressure surface remains static and, moreespecially, as it is moved up and down and in and out.

The stimulating effect on the seat occupant can be maintained, in someembodiments, by the addition of the cycling technology known in theprior art, (as in previously referenced U.S. Pat. No. 6,007,151) whichallows the pressure surface to move in and out automatically in cyclesaccording to user controlled settings.

The amplitude and frequency of the surface undulations in the archingpressure surface 54 may be any of a wide variety of values. Thepreferred range is from 3 to 15 millimeters in both amplitude (depth)and frequency (separation). Varying the depth and separation of bumps orundulations allows the system of the present invention to becustomizable to various seats, whether furniture or automobile seats,various customer parameters for the thickness of cushioning and/orupholstery to be placed over the arching pressure surface, or the amountof massage effect requested by a customer. The shape of the surfacevariations may also be any of a broad range of shapes and still bewithin the scope of the present invention. A broad range furtherincreases customer choices for the tactile effect to be selected and forcompatability with the other components of the seat into which theergonomic support is to be installed. Accordingly, non-smooth surfacevariations may include hemispherical shapes, semi-cylindrical shapes,any parallelogram, sinusoidal patterns, undulations, corrugations orwaves of varying, truncated, uniform or changing amplitude and frequencyor virtually any other non-smooth pattern or configuration.

Stamping or molding such surface variations into the pressure surfacegreatly reduces the weight, size and expense of massage unit whileachieving comfort levels, lumbar fatigue relief, and tactile effectssubstantially equivalent, or nearly so, with the prior art rollermassage units. This is true whether the active portion of the lumbarsupport is an arching pressure surface as depicted herein, oralternatively is a push paddle or tensioning strap type support. Theweight, cost, assembly time and expense of riveting roller pins or axlesto an active pressure surface, installing the rollers on the axles andcapping the ends of the axles to prevent the rollers from coming off ofthem, are all saved. A single stamped metal or molded plastic unit issubstantially lighter than the fabricated assembly of the prior artroller arrays. While the stamped or molded variable pressure surface ofthe present invention has depth, its operative engagement to the staticportion and to the actuating linkage are simpler and more streamlined,thereby saving space in terms of the overall depth of the entire unit,or “package”.

FIG. 6 is a schematic cross-section of one potential embodiment of thevariable pressure surface of the present invention. There semi-circles62 indicate a cross-section of hemispherical bumps stamped or moldedinto the otherwise flat base surface 64 of the pressure surface.

The other aspect of the present system that saves weight, space andexpense is the elimination of mounting brackets for the actuators. Byeliminating the need for a heavy pressure surface required for thesupport of a roller array, the present invention makes it possible touse smaller, less powerful and less expensive electric motors to actuatesmaller and less expensive actuators and gear boxes. Moreover, thereduced power needs eliminate the requirement for added rigidity thatcause prior art massage units to mount the actuators to the staticportions of their supports with heavy brackets (18 on FIG. 1). It willbe appreciated by those of skill in the art that even if the novelpressure surface of the present invention did not change the power andrigidity requirements for the actuators, the elimination of the bracketswould still achieve package size reduction and installation flexibilityof the ergonomic support unit of the present system.

In the depicted embodiment, actuators 56A and 56B are operativelyengaged with the static portion 52 and active portion 54 of theergonomic support through Bowden cables 58 and 60. These traction cablesmove a tractive wire through a sleeve or conduit, which is actuated bythe actuator gear box powered in turn by the electric motor. Drawing thewire into the sleeve puts tractive force on the ergonomic support unitin order to move the active portion 54 relative to the static portion52. In most configurations, traction on the Bowden cable causes theactive portion to arch, tighten or extend a pressure surface out towardsthe seat occupant or support, and relaxation of the wire within thesleeve reduces tension in order to return an active portion to a flatterbase position.

Another common motion of ergonomic support units performed by actuationlinkages such as Bowden cables 58 and 60 is to raise or lower the entireactive portion of the support unit. In the depicted embodiment, a Bowdencable raises the arching pressure surface 54 upwards or downwards on thestatic guide rails 52.

The advantages gained by releasing the actuator mounting from the staticportion 52 of the support unit include a greater adaptability formounting of the unit in varying seat frames; a great reduction in the“packaging” size, and savings in weight and cost by removing the addedpart of a mounting bracket. Since the seat frame, on the periphery ofthe seat, and devices mounted to it are generally not considered to bewithin the “packaging,” ergonomic support units with independentactuators linked by adaptable actuation linkages such as Bowden cables58 and 60, allow the ergonomic support system of the present inventionto be marketed as a much smaller “package.”

In view of the foregoing, it will be seen that the several advantages ofthe invention are achieved and attained.

The embodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain theprinciples of the invention and its practical application to therebyenable others skilled in the art to best utilize the invention invarious embodiments and with various modifications as are suited to theparticular use contemplated.

As various modifications could be made in the constructions and methodsherein described and illustrated without departing from the scope of theinvention, it is intended that all matter contained in the foregoingdescription or shown in the accompanying drawings shall be interpretedas illustrative rather than limiting. For example, push paddle supportsor tensioning strap type supports could employ the present invention.Thus, the breadth and scope of the present invention should not belimited by any of the above-described exemplary embodiments, but shouldbe defined only in accordance with the following claims appended heretoand their equivalents.

1. An ergonomic support mountable on various seat frames characterizedin that: a static portion (52) having anchors and mounts, said mountsbeing adaptable to fix said static portion to varying seat frames; anactive portion (54) operatively engaged with said anchors of said staticportion such that said active portion can move in and out of a planedefined by the frame of the seat, and said active portion having apressure surface with a base level, and having integral convexities insaid base level; and at least one actuator, said actuator engaging theactive portion by only an actuating linkage (60).
 2. The ergonomicsupport for a seat of a claim 1, further comprising at least one secondactuator and at least one second actuating linkage (58), each actuatorengaging the active portion by only one linkage, one of said actuatorsactuating in and out and motion of said active portion and the other ofsaid actuators actuating up and down motion of said active portion. 3.The ergonomic support of any of the preceding claims, wherein saidactuating linkage is a Bowden cable (60).
 4. The ergonomic support ofany of the preceding claims, wherein said active portion is an archingpressure surface.
 5. The ergonomic support of any of the precedingclaims, wherein said active portion is a push paddle.
 6. The ergonomicsupport of any of the preceding claims, wherein said active portion is atensioning strap.
 7. The ergonomic support of any of the precedingclaims, wherein said active portion is a pneumatic device.
 8. Theergonomic support of any of the preceding claims, wherein said archingpressure surface is stamped metal.
 9. The ergonomic support of any ofthe preceding claims, wherein said arching pressure surface is moldedplastic.
 10. The ergonomic support of any of the preceding claims,wherein said at least one actuator is driven by an electric motor. 11.The ergonomic support of any of the preceding claims, wherein said baselevel of said active portion is smooth, and further comprisingseparately manufactured convexities that are attached to said baselevel.
 12. The ergonomic support of any of the preceding claims furthercharacterized in that: said static portions are at least two guide rods(52), said guide rods having mounts adaptable to mount said guide rodson a frame of a seat; said pressure surface also having upper and lowerrod mounts, said rod mounts engaging said guide rods and at least onesaid upper or lower rod mounts being slideable along said guide rods; atraction cable (60) having a sleeve and a wire disposed to slide axiallythrough said sleeve, said sleeve having a first end engaging an upperportion or a lower portion of said pressure surface and said wire havinga first end engaging the other of said upper portion or said lowerportion of said pressure surface; and an actuator operatively engagedwith a second end of said sleeve and a second end of said wire of saidtraction cable such that said actuator applies or releases traction tosaid pressure surface via said traction cable; wherein application ofsaid traction arches said pressure surface outward from a plane definedby guide rods.